A common problem consumers face is misplacing and forgetting important items like keys, wallets, cell phones, iPods, and glasses. The amount of money that is spent by consumers who have to replace lost or misplaced items is enormous. Currently, there are devices that provide tracking capabilities, but they are substantially limited by their geo-fence (e.g. a predefined virtual boundary, perimeter, radius, or zone around a location point) so that if an item is misplaced beyond the geo-fence, the item cannot be located rendering such device useless. Some devices have longer range tracking capabilities, but either are limited to the number of items or type of items that they track such as LoJack which is used only to track cars and has to be installed. Other tracking devices either do not alert the user if the item is moved or stolen. Some tracking devices only sound an alarm if the item is tampered with. These alarms are often ignored because such alarms are easy to set off accidentally (e.g. going off when no attempted tampering has occurred). No devices actually alert the public that an item is stolen.
Accordingly, a need exists for multi-modal tracking locator alarm systems that can secure, track, locate, and alert a user as to the location of various assets with flexible geo-fencing that can be dynamically changed and to notify the public if an item is stolen.